Blue Water Veterinary Care

26/02/2025

Happy Thursday!
Which one are you choosing? We know lots of our repeat offender clients that would love number 3 😂

P.s. we've had a small technical glitch with our online booking system making appointments not available, but we've fixed this and now have our availabilities online. Visit https://pawsapp.com.au/Book?ClinicId=6090&IsIframe=false&Style=6090.css to book!

15/01/2025

🥵 HEAT WAVE 🥵

The weather is really heating up this week and we are keeping a close eye on our bookings to ensure our patients, clients and staff are safe, sound and hydrated.
We may reschedule if it’s a particularly hot day or you do not have shade for us to work in!

Make sure you’re keeping a close eye on our equine friends 🐴 - cool them off with sprinklers or a hose during the heat of the day, provide plenty of drinking water, and ensure their electrolyte intake is solid, especially if they seem to be sweating less than normal.

Be proactive and make sure you’re exercising your horse in the cool of the early morning or late evening if you need to ride during a heat wave.

Call us if your horse seems lethargic, not wanting to eat or off colour! 0458 806 183 - 24/7 equine emergencies

05/01/2025

👯‍♀️ DOUBLE TROUBLE 👯‍♀️

We had a sneaky 16 day pregnancy scan this morning for one of our very dedicated equine reproduction clients this season.

After an urgent freight flight from Victoria, a 9pm pick up at the airport in pouring rain, and 11pm insemination just before Christmas, this lovely mare did us proud and produced TWO excellent embryos.

We scanned her early and we were able to perform a successful twin reduction at the time of diagnosis to reduce serious complication risks in both the mare and the embryo. There is a high chance the second remaining embryo will go on to develop normally from here.

If you want to know more about why mares should be checked for twins early, this article written by WestVETS Equine Hospital sums it up beautifully!

https://www.westvets.com.au/double-trouble-twin-pregnancies/ #:~:text=The%20mare's%20uterus%20is%20capable,%2C%20and%20recto%2Dvaginal%20tears.

19/12/2024

A GOOD DAY TO BE A DUCK 🦆🦆

We have had a phenomenal amount of rain in the past 48 hours, with things looking set to ramp up today.

Please keep in mind that the safety of our staff, patients and clients are our highest priority - if you don’t want to drive in this weather, we probably don’t either!

We provide emergency services as a courtesy to our current and loyal clients who use our regular and preventative health services.

We will do our very best to accomodate emergencies where we can, however there may be some occasions where we are unable to attend. Verbal abuse, emotional blackmail or guilt trips will NOT be tolerated under any circumstances. Please be kind - We shouldn’t have to ask that of people calling!

We are CLOSED from today (20th December) until Monday the 6th January. If you have a genuine Afterhours emergency, please contact us on 0458 806 183.

Stay safe and dry! 💦💦

09/12/2024

** WE ARE HIRING**

Are you, or do you know of an excellent equine veterinarian or new graduate veterinarian?

We are rapidly expanding and to keep up with our workload, we need another vet!

We can cater the role to the applicant as required, however a relevant veterinary degree and ability to be registered with the VSB QLD is non-negotiable.

Supportive, small team with excellent working conditions and high level equine veterinary care.

Please contact 0458 806 183 or email your resume and cover letter to [email protected] for more information.

We look forward to hearing from you!
https://bluewatervets.com.au/work-with-us

28/11/2024

THANK YOU!!

We'd like to take the opportunity to thank our wonderful clients for their patience with us this week.

We've had an extremely busy fortnight with nearly double the number routine and emergency calls than normal, a busy period during breeding season after the recent rain (6 mares to breed in 3 days), and sickness going through our small team.

Please be patient with us as we return your enquiry, and if you think we may have overlooked you, please don't be afraid to get back in touch! 0458 806 183 or head to https://pawsapp.com.au/Book?ClinicId=6090&IsIframe=false&Style=6090.css to book online.

Here's a wonderful foal we had the privilege of performing a health check on this week - like mother, like daughter!!

01/10/2024

✨ WEEKLY WRAP ✨

It has been a week to remember with an unprecedented amount of emergency cases in the last 10 days or so. 😬

Thank you to our wonderful clients who have been patient with our slower than normal replies - we are endeavouring to return enquiries today! 💙

What we've been up to:
- 360 degree uterine torsion in a full term pregnant mare
- A small eye ulceration which is responding well with prompt treatment
- A severe hind limb laceration referred to SE QLD for specialist surgery - a very common wound, we've seen 3 almost identical wounds in the past 3 weeks!
- A large number of castrations including a donkey and Ash's own c**t who started getting a bit cheeky!
- Hernia repair in a 18 month old filly
- Swamp cancer assessment and treatment
- Lots of dentals!
- Repro season kick off and insemination of 3 mares in our first week
- A visit from our gorgeous resident carpet python
- Much, much more!

Last but not least, we have had Zoetis install a full suite of blood machines into our home base, so we now have the ability to run most types of blood testing with almost immediate results! It's been a game changer and we look forward to using it regularly 👌

Happy October! 🐴

21/09/2024

💫 WEEKLY WRAP UP 💫

Another massive week for the books, with our clients welcoming 3 new foals this week including one we artificially bred last year. We also kicked off breeding season with our first two of many mares being bred with frozen semen this week.

- Lots of neonatal foal checks
- Breeding Scans and semen analysis
- Septic coffin joint injury after a nail pe*******on (never remove a nail in the foot before calling your vet!)
- Sore eyes
- Puppy litter vaccinations and microchipping
- Itchy skin
- Lameness investigation and surgery
- Most wonderfully behaved donkey friends
- And our clinic dog Polly finding herself in a sticky situation 😂

Massive thanks to Heathz Mechanical - Mackay for helping get our crush trailer back on the road ASAP this week. 🔧🛞

Also as a side note - we are booking out 2+ weeks in advance for routine calls, so if you have a particular date that works best for you, get in early to avoid disappointment!

Happy Saturday 🥰🐴

15/09/2024

✨WEEKLY WRAP UP 👀✨

Back by popular demand from many of our wonderful clients, here's some of the cool things we've been up to in the past week (couple of months!):
- Re-fencing our home base with horse safe fencing
- Wounds
- Dentals and extractions
- Ticks
- Foals
- Breeding season kick off with a small but eager helper

We'll try to keep you updated more regularly and we hope you're enjoying the most of this wonderful riding weather! 🐴

19/08/2024

Over the past week, we have had enquiries from two clients regarding inappropriate aggression in their horses. Both horses were worked up by our vets from head to toe, and received a gastroscopy exam to check for gastric ulcers. Both horses had nasty ulcers and we are now able to get them onto treatment to heal these ulcers and improve their comfort.

Both of these horses' owners mentioned the possibility of selling their horses on because they were so aggressive and hard to manage, but we hope that these horses improve in their comfort and return to their usual loving selves soon!

If your horse has new or unexpected aggression, weight loss, hair coat changes, inappetance or irritability, they definitely could have gastric ulcers (which are so common in horses!), so we'd recommend getting in touch ASAP for an exam.

13/08/2024

We were lucky enough to help a gorgeous pair of alpaca hembras (females) today after they had a nasty run in with some dogs.
They’ll be feeling better very soon! 🤕🥰

31/07/2024

Happy Birthday to our horses and ponies! 🐴🐴
We hope you have an amazing day spoiling them with treats and love 💙💙

29/07/2024

Chris Burton has taken Eventing Individual Silver at Paris 2024 💚💛

28/06/2024

Dr Hope doing a little ‘kidding’ around on our last Friday of June. 🐐

Hope is off on a very hard earnt break for the next two weeks 🌴☀️ and next week we are open for emergencies only as Dr Ash takes a week to reset the business and catch up on what was a whirlwind start to 2024.

We will be back to full capacity in the second week of July and return any non-urgent enquiries at this time! 0458 806 183 for any emergencies!

12/06/2024

We've had a jam-packed couple of weeks and have missed our weekly updates so here's a photo dump of some of our favourites from the months of May and June

11/06/2024

Thank you for having us to your well behaved ponies Nicole!! Such a delight 🥰

The reason your horse strikes, bites or pushes dangerously on your vet, is because you haven't taught them that a human's personal space matters.

Personal space issues can be easy to overlook if your horse is usually quiet and placid, and the behaviour only seems to show up when they are stressed or hurting.

But if you look closely at your daily interactions, you'll find that you are allowing uninvited pushing into your space in subtle ways... and therefore accidentally telling your horse it's ok to use physical force against humans.

For example, if your horse is::

* Demanding scratches by leaning on you, or using you as a rubbing post

* Nibbling at your pockets looking for treats

* Shoving their head in the bucket before you have set it down in front of them

* Swinging their head / shoulders / rump into you when they get distracted by something else

* Creeping up closer after you have backed them away from you

All of these things, if not rectified, lead the horse to believe that it's perfectly fine to push against a human.

>> All of these things are a miniature version of getting struck, bitten or run over by your horse.

29/05/2024

Our phones have been down today and we haven’t been receiving phone calls. We have now fixed this problem but sincerely apologise if you have tried to get through today!
If you have any more troubles, please text 0458 806 183 and we can return your call. Texts are working perfectly 👌

Rainbow from this morning’s drive across the Pleystowe bridge (taken from the passenger seat 😉)

25/05/2024

So wonderful to see so many familiar faces!! Hope everyone enjoyed the ride today 🩶🖤